Posted
by
Zonk
on Wednesday January 16, 2008 @07:05PM
from the probably-could-have-used-a-bit-of-forethought-there dept.

Reservoir Hill writes "Pope Benedict XVI canceled a speech at Rome's La Sapienza university in the face of protests led by scientists opposed to a high-profile visit to a secular setting by the head of the Catholic Church. Sixty-seven professors and researchers of the university's physics department joined in the call for the pope to stay away protesting the planned visit recalled a 1990 speech in which the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, seemed to justify the Inquisition's verdict against Galileo in 1633. In the speech, Ratzinger quoted an Austrian philosopher who said the ruling was 'rational and just' and concluded with the remark: 'The faith does not grow from resentment and the rejection of rationality, but from its fundamental affirmation, and from being rooted in a still greater form of reason.' The protest against the visit was spearheaded by physicist Marcello Cini who wrote the rector complaining of an 'incredible violation" of the university's autonomy. Cini said of Benedict's cancellation: 'By canceling, he is playing the victim, which is very intelligent. It will be a pretext for accusing us of refusing dialogue.'"

In a local article about this, I read that a former Pope FOUNDED the school, which I find quite ironic.

Not just any pope either, it was Boniface VIII [wikipedia.org]. Dante [wikipedia.org] hated him and destined him to his hell for simony (with the other damned asking "Is Boniface here yet?"). Since Dante's Inferno is the most read of the three books of the Commedia [wikipedia.org] and compulsory reading for high-school students in Italy, pretty much every Italian connects Boniface VII with corruption, greed, hypocrisy and lust for power. Which brings us back to the current pope...

Sorry but your are wrong: no one has "shout down" the Pope. He owns a newspaper and a radio, and he's the politician that we see more than anyone else in TV here in Italy, even more than Silvio Berlusconi that owns half of the Italians TV stations.

Yes the Pope acts exactly like a politician in Italy: he tell which laws should be passed or not, or changed, for whom to vote and sometimes even tell people not to go voting, like in a recent referendum. And it's far from nice and good: the Vatican opposes (successfully, thanks to corrupt politician) the right of women, gays and lesbians, is opposing right now an anti-racism law (you read it right: they aren't opposing racism, they are trying to shout down an anti-racism law) and they even opposed a donation from Italy to a children hospital (they didn't oppose the use of the same budget money for the war in Iraq a few years ago), because they want to have the exclusive of charity in the minds of the Italians (the stupid ones, at least) so they get more donations.

And we already know exactly what he was going to say: that abortion is murder, even if it's a simple embryo one day from the fertilisation. And abortion must be completely illegal (in Italy we have a very sensible and balanced abortion law, that has reduced to less than half the number of abortions from when it was completely illegal and all abortions were clandestine, and saved countless women). I know this because I see him every day on every television news always saying the same things, and insulting women, gays, scientists and atheists.

Well he's free to says what the hell he wants, but scientists are also free to not invite him to say those things in a university. He can say the same thing but not in my home. This isn't censorship!

And the Earth is not flat. It's approximately spherical! And it goes around the Sun, not vice versa. I don't care what the Pope says about it: Galileo Galilei was right and the Bible is wrong!

Since you're presenting the bible is "wrong" without qualifiers and without reference, and I know you wouldn't want me to take you on faith...

It's clear that I was speaking about the fact the the Earth is not flat and the center of the universe, but now that you mention it, there are a lot of place where the Bible is inconsistent, factually and/or morally (IMNSHO) wrong.

Have you an example verse that is not open to metaphorical interpretation and uncontingent on present-day constructs of Geometry you'd like to present for discussion?

You mean like this one: "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son... Then shall his father and his mother... bring him out unto the elders of his city... And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die." -- Deuteronomy 21:18-21

Killing stubborn children is a metaphor for what exactly? And if you think this is funny I can find dozen more examples of this shit, in both the old and the new testament, since I have actually read the whole bible from cover to cover, something that most christians don't do, apparently.

because having little tolerance for absurd ideas and bigoted people is TOTALLY the same thing as having little tolerance for people living their life their own way.

the following two actions are SOOO the same
1) Tell someone they're not welcome because they're asinine bigoted ideas
2) Pass laws against someone, condemn them to hell,etc because they don't live by your rules and therefore are second class citizens

Oh, absolutely they're different. And what the scientists did was neither of those. They didn't tell the Pope he wasn't welcome, they campaigned to prevent him speaking at the university. They didn't pass laws, because mob rule doesn't like laws. And I bet none of them have bothered to find out why Galileo was really excommunicated and just assumed the popular myth was true (simplistically, he was excommunicated for effectively calling the Pope an idiot when the Pope asked for scientific evidence of what

Galileo had evidence to support his theory, while the other scientists relied on dogma and tradition as their evidence. I use the term "scientists" loosely because those people were clearly not scientists in any sense we understand today. Making Galileo out to be a crank scientist who turned out to be right is a pretty damaging view of one of the great scientists of his age.Condemning someone to Hell was not something to take lightly back then. We can say things today like "it'd be pretty bad I guess, if yo

did you notice how the scientists played it so that he couldn't win? [...] it seems that they believe that their ideas can only stand if they suppress competing ideas.

You're wrong: this professor and a lot of professors and students asked the cancellation of the invitation to the Pope from the university chancellor to speak without a debate. The invitation wasn't cancelled at all, and now they're trying to portait the Pope as a victim (successfully, judging from a number of apologist comments even here on/.), which is why the professor is complaing.

And they didn't suppress his ideas at all: on the contrary they have on Italian media much, much more space than science, other religions and atheism combined togheter. We see the Pope every day on almost every Italian TV channel, sometimes for hours without interruptions! They simply asked that the university do not give implicit scientific legitimacy to his extremist ideas without a debate, at the most important ceremony of the year!

If you don't live in Italy you may not understand how strong is the offensive from the Vatican against women, gays, lesbians, science, atheists and pretty much anyone who doesn't bow. Please read my previous comment [slashdot.org] about this. This IS NOT ABOUT RELIGION: is about money, power and the violated rights of actual people in Italy and elsewhere.

So it's perfectly okay for a Creationist to demand that he be allowed to give a speech at a biology department? It's perfectly alright for a Holocaust Denier to give a speech at memorial to Nazi genocide victims?

No one is censoring the Pope. Quite the opposite, the man gets far more attention than I think he deserves. That he isn't showing up at a university for some sort of glorified photo op where he gets to pretend he's cozy with science is hardly some vast attempt to silence him.

Man, just because you were born in a world where practically anyone claiming to have a science degree is considered infallible by the media doesn't make Galileo's imprisonment unforgivable.

Do you realize how stupid that sounds?

Man, just because you were born in a world where practically anyone can claim freedom from slavery doesn't make slavery unforgivable.Man, just because you live in a world where rape and murder are illegal, doesn't make rape and murder unforgivable....and so on...

See I can justify any action with handwaving.

He wasn't imprisoned because of his scientific findings, but because of his behavior that implied an unacceptably belligerent stance against his intellectual opponents. He not only insulted his scholarly peers, but also certain religious authorities (e.g. the pope) who were the very people trying to defend him.

In some ways that is much WORSE. It means the very people who claim to be the protectors of mankind from all things evil were quite happy to trash scientific truth just to put down anyone that would question their authority.

I also hear this argument a lot and it simply doesn't hold true. You do realize that Copernicus held off publishing his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) until he was old and close to dying for fear of retribution from the church? He didn't go around insulting the pope now did he? His works were still banned.

First of all, I doubt that the pope at the time ever threatened to order bodily harm against Galileo, but you're welcome to enlighten me on that point.

You DOUBT? You mean I'm having this argument with someone who doesn't even KNOW the history, but is happy to rabbit on about things he knows nothing about? If you're actually interested in what really happened I can recommend a couple of good books I studied as part of my History of Astronomy subject when I did my Astronomy Masters. Never mind...I'm wasting my breath, aren't I? You're prepared to repeat whatever you've heard without examining it at all.

I didn't say the pope threatened Galileo with anything. I said the current pope condoned the actions of the inquisition that did threaten. Go look up a biography some time.

Now, I wonder whether it's even worth while arguing about excommunication with you, given that apparently you do not accept it as anything other than a cruel expulsion.

Again you show your ignorance. It's more than just a "cruel expulsion". A man who is excommunicated became a pariah, often had his belongings stripped from him, and was threatened with the fires of hell for eternity. This was no mere slap on the wrist.

I wonder if you could at least accept that the a person whose actual beliefs do not jive with his professed belief system would be foolish to remain within that system, or that said belief-system would be quite self-destructive if it allowed dissenting members to continue on acting as members.

Ahhh so it's a form of control. A man's life, livelihood, and beliefs mean nothing because he dared to make fun of the holy church. This is no defence. You clearly have no conception whatsoever of what excommunication meant in the 1600s!

Yet we haven't addressed the central issue: was the former Cardinal defending the debilitating life-long house arrest of Galileo, or was he merely saying that the trial itself was a rational response (if harsh for our standards) against one accused of heresy under the authority of the Church, and that it wasn't an attack on Science at all?

The pope was condoning torture, forcing a person to recant deeply held beliefs, interference of the church with scientific freedom and publication.

But yes strictly speaking you're right. If you're running an evil and descructive totalitarian organisation it is rational to cond

So it's perfectly okay for a Creationist to demand that he be allowed to give a speech at a biology department? It's perfectly alright for a Holocaust Denier to give a speech at memorial to Nazi genocide victims?

Going out and putting a gag on him, or making it illegal for him to speak. Other than that, it's a group of scientists who find his position on Galileo, and how that speaks to his views on science, troubling, and feeling that he really has no place speaking at an institution. The Pope has plenty of places he can say his spiel.

He was drafted into the army by a fascist state. Not something he had any choice over or should be blamed for.

his previous employment was as head of the Inquisition (which did in fact kill a few people in its heyday)

In 1981, Ratzinger was named Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Inquisition, although the activities we now associate with "the Inquisition" ended centuries before Ratzinger's birth.

forbids the use of condoms and family planning resulting in disease and famine

He holds no legal authority outside a few blocks in Rome. He is the head of a faith that teaches chastity outside of marriage, but so is the Dalai Lama.

goes around dressed in gold

Yes, the Pope does wear papal vestments, although "dressed in gold" is another exaggeration. You might have also noticed that the Pope is indeed Catholic. Look, if you have a bone to pick with the Pope, at least be honest about it. Don't go around misleading people.

He was drafted into the army by a fascist state. Not something he had any choice over or should be blamed for.

Some people, at the risk of their lives, defected. He stayed in the system. Many others did, like Nobel laureate Günther Grass [wikipedia.org], but Grass lived an entire life of anti-fascist political activity afterwards. Another Nobel laureate, Dario Fo [wikipedia.org], was drafted but defected at the first occasion to join the resistance. Note that Fo was born in 1927, less than one month before Benedict XVI, and Grass is only six months older.And anyway, the point was to point the irony with the six-million figure indicated by the parent post, when Ratzinger was among those that helped establish that tally.

the activities [of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith] we now associate with "the Inquisition" ended centuries before Ratzinger's birth.

They are not allowed to torture people anymore with the comfy chair, but their main activity is still censorship and repression of free thought within the Church. He could have chosen to be a missionary like Mother Theresa, but preferred the activity of a censoring bureaucrat.

He holds no legal authority outside a few blocks in Rome.

Man, I am Italian and I wish it were like that. He has far more authority in the country than politicians. He says what he wants, and politicians usually give it to him because too few dare to tell him to mind his business, even though the separation of state and church should be a principle in the agreements the Italian state has with the Vatican. Partly it's because being "catholic", over here, is like being "patriotic" in the US. He is currently attacking the Italian abortion law: instead of simply telling catholics not to have abortions, he wants to make it illegal for everybody. Some people still remember how it was before the abortion law: double as many abortions and all performed by untrained, shady figures, resulting in women dying every year.

Yes, the Pope does wear papal vestments, although "dressed in gold" is another exaggeration.

I probably did not finish the thought in my original post. It is not just that the pope is actually dressed in clothes that would cover significant charity projects and probably save hundreds of lives from starvation, the Church as a whole is actually a quite greedy parasite. They get about 0.8% of the Italian income tax and all their activities (including the for-profit ones) are tax-exempt, which in the last 20 years has allowed them to amass a fortune. Weren't these the guys who should preach poverty?

Universities are intended to provide a well-rounded education and a forum for debating issues and ideas. Churches are not. They serve radically different purposes.

To say that religious discussion at a University is unwelcome because scientific lectures are not welcome in church services is displaying both ignorance of the functions of both venues and intolerance.

Our local Uni regularly has theological discussions open to the public. It drives our local token athiest nuts, but at least people get to hear the ideas and judge for themselves.

The protest against the visit was spearheaded by physicist Marcello Cini who wrote the rector complaining of an 'incredible violation" of the university's autonomy. Cini said of Benedict's cancellation: 'By canceling, he is playing the victim, which is very intelligent. It will be a pretext for accusing us of refusing dialogue.'"

Let's see. He asks that the visit be canceled. The visit gets canceled. Then he complains about the visit having been canceled.

come over here in Italy for some time and get a hang on the situation... pope, pope, priests, everywhere, anytime, these folks don't just say mass... they pretend and expect to have a say on italian policy and law... and the politicians just queue up to kiss the royal slipper.
So we get OUR representatives kneeling down to some guy that tells them that stem cell research is against God's will... so we don't, that Marriage is a Holy Covenant between a male and a female... end to any discusion on sexually indifferent civil unions (useful for things like visiting your partner in hospital, having a say on a partner's fate in case of dire illness, sharing legal responsibilities on property as a couple, hereditary benefits in case of death and so on...).

The best of all: the law on medically assisted reproduction - seems written off the Vatican - an absurd, demented and quite cruel piece of tripe written around the concept that the embryo is a human being with human legal status since genomic fusion, thus there can be no frozen embryo left out of the process: thus a woman undergoing the procedure MUST get all of them implanted - in batches of four - and since you can't freeze eggs, if a lap fails she goes through the whole process again (hormone therapy included).

Next in the crosshairs is abortion... once the preceding principle was settled they're going after the law allowing abortion (over here it's quite rigid, written around the principle of responsible parenthood and very effective about it) and since the UN moratorium on executions they've started a fuss on abortion moratoriums... execution == abortion... you get it?

So Mr, we're full of priests, they come from all over the world storming over Italy... the last pope was polish, this one is german... but they still mess around with our italian stuff...

It's not as simple as that. The pope wanted to come, make a speech and leave. No questions allowed, no debate. The physicists wanted to be able to respond and have a proper debate on his stance on scientific issues in general if he was to come at all. By backing off, the pope paints himself as the victim, avoiding a debate that would make him look like the medieval remain that he is.This has cause a big stir because, in general, the Italian political system is completely captive to the Vatican. Every day the media reports any move of word of the pope no matter how minor. Any talk show always has at least a priest as a guest. The church has huge properties and pays no taxes. The church get 0.08% of the tax collected unless one goes to great lengths to direct it somewhere else et.c etc.

Why the hell should any science department give a rat's ass what any religious leader has to say? Does the Pope have any degrees in any sciences? Does he have any expertise, academic or otherwise that would apply in any way, shape or form, to the sciences?

yet millions of people still think he knows more about science than the greatest experts in the various fields of science

Um, Catholics don't care what the Pope has to say about scientific matters, nor is it relevant to his position. He is only considered infallible on issues of faith and morals, and even then it is only when it is done in an official capacity (ex cathedra as it is called). I think you are confusing the Pope with some nutter like Pat Robertson. Catholicism != Modern American fundie Evangelicalism.

If you don't believe that contraception, abortion, homosexuality, premarital sex, etc. are immoral, you are not Catholic. Those are no more optional beliefs than the dogma of the immaculate conception, the transubstantiation of the Eucharist, and the resurrection.

The Pope doesn't particularly talk about the actual mechanics of science as much as the philosophy that it is connected to. And a lot of scientists simply "do" science without ever thinking about the philosophy which comes first: is science the ONLY way to attain knowledge?

Oh, and the Pope (as Cardinal Ratzinger) has written hundreds if not thousands of pages on that topic.

OK, I think the previous comments were off-the-hook, and indicated just how conservative this new pope is when compared with the previous. That said, I'm not sure what the physicist in question was trying to accomplish.

Did he want the Pope to visit? Why complain when he cancels? He pretty much admits that any move the Pope made would have been viewed as some sort of ploy or insult. And he complains about the Pope not wanting a dialog? And what dialog? Why does the Pope need a dialog with this University?!

Since when are religious people prohibited from "entering secular institutions"? This smacks of muslim holy sites. An intelligent scientist welcomes a chance to meet any prominent individual, even if they don't subscribe to each other's theories.

In any case, there is currently no unified theory that explains the connection of the spiritual realm ("soul") and physical world. Certainly there are dependencies (healthy body leads to healthy mind), but this still doesn't explain how we "feel" about the various chemical and electric processes going on in our brains. It only makes sense to study spirituality based on spiritual methods just like we study science scientifically. Perhaps some day we will discover more details about the connection between these two realms, but until then the two groups should just get off each others' backs.

In any case, there is currently no unified theory that explains the connection of the spiritual realm ("soul") and physical world.
Here, let me fix that for you:
In any case, there is currently no evidence of the spiritual realm ("soul")...

The story of Galileo is a tad more complicated than the simplistic version we're used to. I'm no Roman Catholic, but this meme needs to be corrected.

From your link: "After Galileo went back to Padua, the leading scientific mediocrities started complaining. It was the scientists who said that challenging Aristotle was heresy -- not the Church."From the Chuch: 1571, Paul IV issues the first formal Index Librorum Prohibitorum, including such works as De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium by Copernicus.

Galileo was 7 when that happened. Stop listening to people who are arguing that it was ok to censor the man's empirical proof of a heretical scientific theory.

While I am the first to admit that religions have a good side, the amount of damage (direct and indirect) that has been perpetrated on humanity in the name of vague ethereal omnipotent beings is so stunning that very few people even realize it. But we shouldn't be surprised at Ratzinger's stance, even if we say to ourselves that it's the 21st century and what are these people smoking? The catholic church is desperate to hold on to its constituency and one of the ways to do that is to harden their stance on issues like these. You see, the vast majority of catholics in the world are poor, uneducated people for whom religion is a refuge from the usually harsh reality of existence. By essentially going back in time, Ratzinger is clinging to the good old days where the Holy Church was always right even if it was wrong, because it derives its wisdom from divinity. This in turn reaffirms the trust that people place in the church's judgment.

Ratzinger was elected for two very specific reasons. First, he is already old so he won't spend 30 years on the throne. That's important to the church hierarchy because they don't want another John Paul II setting policy for that long and progressively going soft on them. The second is that he's essentially a hardcore, old-school catholic. You'll see a lot more of this crap in the next few years, along with a resurgence of the more traditional major and minor orders within the church organization, slowly displacing the more enlightened groups that gained a lot of power during John Paul's tenure.

We'll have to wait about a decade or so to see if this new angle will work for them. Personally I don't think it will. The world has largely moved on. But so much power (most of it very subtle) concentrated in the hands of a group of people who think it wasn't so bad to punish people for claiming that earth is not the center of the universe cannot be good. To paraphrase someone, it's not God I dislike - it's his fan club that scares the crap out of me.

You see, the vast majority of catholics in the world are poor, uneducated people for whom religion is a refuge from the usually harsh reality of existence.

I'm going to have to ask you to prove that one to me. I'll bet you a steak dinner that: 1) You can't (it's an unverifiable statement no matter how you slice it) and 2) you haven't met many practicing Roman Catholics.

Your bias against religion is astounding. Compare your statements "religions have a good side" and "the amount of damage [they perpetrated]... is so stunning...". One could make the same argument about, oh, our favorite topic: Technology. In fact, I think I will: "Technology has its good side, but the amount of damage (direct and indirect) that has been perpetrated on humanity in the name of progress is so stunning that few people even realize it."

Now, I should point out that I am both religious (Muslim, believe it or not) and a big fan of science and technology. I do not think they are opposite approaches to things. They are actually quite orthogonal. If you think that a world without religion would be a better place, I'm afraid you'd be as sadly mistaken as if you said a world without technology would be a better place. Think about it for a second; the two actually need each other. Religion (or, at the very least, morality) without rationality (without "science") easily veers towards superstition and sorcery. Science without religion just as easily veers towards the cruel and inhuman. Ideally, each should help guide the other.

None of this is to say that there are not some religious people out there who attempt to undermine the scientific and rational process, but I think you'll find that sort of person could just as easily be areligious. Arstechnica had an interesting article not too long ago debunking a paper on a theory of homeopathy, whose authors all had letters behind their names. On the other hand, a large portion of Western philosophical and scientific thought came from deeply religious people, a lot of whom were Catholics.

Coming back to your obvious bias against Catholicism: what I find most peculiar is that you happen to pick a religion which has, time and time again, insisted that the Universe is knowable and rational, two necessary assumptions for any scientific progress to occur. Yes, yes, some of them (just like the aforementioned homeopathic charlatans) try to ignore, disregard, or diminish the role of reason, but the stance of the religion on reason is pretty damn clear to anyone whose even bothered studying it. In short, you should spend more time actually reading about Catholicism than reading about conspiracy theories regarding the council of Cardinals, the Pope, and the Church. Its views may differ greatly from yours, but it's not the big scary monster you make it out to be.

What is it, specifically, that prevents you from performing dangerous experiments on unwilling human subjects?

Not being a psychopath, I identify with other people somewhat, and have some capacity for putting myself in other people's shoes. I wouldn't like to be experimented on unknowingly, so I wouldn't experiment on other people unknowingly. Even if I were psychopathic, those who aren't will tend to keep me in line.

Religions do not have a monopoly, as it were, on morality, but you'll find that most of the moral standards to which we hold ourselves emerge directly from them

Such as? Ultimately the things people tend to consider wrong, such as murder, adultery, theft and so on are considered so because of ideas like ownership, desire for social cohesion and stability, in in-built emotional responses evolution has seen fit to provide us with; they're universal (for the most part) not because people are scared Sky Master From Beyond The Universe will beat them up if they break them, but because they're easily recognisable as being bad for the life most people want to lead, and those who disagree tend to get removed from the equation one way or another.

You don't think you find the idea of murdering someone abhorrent because you're Muslim, do you?

I assure you even those questions, not to mention all the others you have not considered, are more complex than you might imagine at first.

Why? Because I do not take into account what I think a possible creator of the universe might think on any given matter? "Well, I have no problem with homosexuals, but now I take into account the fact that this book says they're an abomination upon the Lord, I'm going to be an asshole and try to mess up their lives", hmm. "I thought condoms were a pretty good idea, but then I remembered the big guy in the sky who can do absolutely anything He wants gets upset when I thwart His plan with a thin layer of latex".

I ask you, how do, living beyond good and evil, tell Right from Wrong without returning back to religion?

Normal people have this thing called a conscience. Perhaps you've heard of it? It's kind of like God, only this invisible friend is normally recognised as being ourselves, and you can actually have a conversation with it. Possibly you're even confusing yours with the creator of the cosmos; an easy mistake to make, and one I made myself, long ago.

With a religion, while the impulse to follow this self-serving bias is still there, it's not nearly as easy to carry through on it. Why? Because an honest man will always go back to the book, the priest, or the sage and ask him, "hey, is this alright?"

This is "why social support networks are good for morality", not "why religion is good for morality". In the context of science it's normally a requirement to actually get anything done, if only for practical reasons.

the problem people have with religion is the problem people have with all things; practitioners of a religion are human, just like practitioners of anything else, and they're going to fail and falter occasionally.

Well, sure, except many of the problems I have with religions are when they appear to be working properly; decrying the use of contraception, persecuting homosexuals, underminding our own understanding of the nature of reality, indoctrinating children, suppressing women, and pushing their own agendas on everybody else. You talk about evil? That's it, right there.

Cini said of Benedict's cancellation: 'By canceling, he is playing the victim, which is very intelligent. It will be a pretext for accusing us of refusing dialogue.

I am actually in La Sapienza university. I'm following the unfortunate unfolding of the events. The Pope cancelled the partecipation to avoid confrontation between the police and the "students" willing to "siege" (Their words http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=U6hfyz4LuIY [youtube.com] ) the Aula Magna where the meeting was scheduled. The decision came after the "students" occupied the Rectorate.

More than refusing dialogue it looks to many of us as the Pope was forced not to be present under the menace of riots: One of the students stated "THERE IS NO DIALOGUE WITH THAT INDIVIDUAL" and the leader in his speech claimed the presence of many other collective outsiders to participate in the event to make it as much inhospitable as possible to the Pope. Last image is the invasion of the rectorate and a meal served outside the premises.

I am disgusted to be italian in the same university as those.

I'm disgusted as well to be forced to post as AC because they are VIOLENT-RED-FASCISTS supported by squatters in the SanLorenzo suburb next to the university.

I'm theologically on the side of the scientists on all these issues, but I cannot fault the pope's conduct here. Many scientists are pushing atheism as the new religion and they seem to want to force everyone to accept it. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they should not be heard- that has never been a good reason to silence someone. Silencing is the way of Hilter, Stalin, and others. It's exactly what the church did centuries ago to scientists and now its redeveloping on the other side of the coin. Just because religion isn't considered a pure science doesn't mean that it has intrinsic value in its morals/teachings/beliefs.

I would hope that people see that this University is not representative of the broader intellectual community.

The public perception in many places is that Richard Dawkins is a spokesperson for scientists (with a position like Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, perhaps the perception is warranted). When such a well-known public figure rags on religion as much as he does, it's no wonder that religious people feel threatened by science. In a very real sense, Dawkins does evangelize for atheism. This is one reason why people have started calling it a "religion."

On the other hand, many extremely accomplished scientists (Stephen Jay Gould, to name one off the top of my head) have a view of religion that is fundamentally different from Dawkin's view, and not nearly as antagonistic.

The public perception in many places is that Richard Dawkins is a spokesperson for scientists (with a position like Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, perhaps the perception is warranted).

Huh? Saying some is a "spokesperson for scientists" is like saying Linus Torvalds is a "spokesperson for software developers". It's just incredibly inaccurate. Frankly I don't really care if peoples perception is "warranted". I'm sure lots of evil crap that goes down in the world is "warranted". What I care about is if right or wrong, and clearly it's wrong.When such a well-known public figure rags on religion as much as he does, it's no wonder that religious people feel threatened by science.

Religious people feel threatened by science because many of them have built a religion on the gaps of knowledge. As those gaps are filled in, it threatens their belief structure. Rather than modify their belief structure, they choose to challenge science itself. Dawkins has really little to do with it. It's not like this whole science/religion schism just developed in the last several years.In a very real sense, Dawkins does evangelize for atheism. This is one reason why people have started calling it a "religion."

Who are all these people? You? This is honestly the first time I've ever heard someone try to call atheism.. the lack of belief in a deity.. a religion. It's just amazing to me that anyone takes this kind of thing seriously.

Is disbelief in Zeus mean you're a Hellenic paganist? Does disbelief in witchcraft mean you're an occultist?

Atheism is the disbelief in God. It has no meaningful tenets, no dogma, no holy books, no ceremonies, no rites, no declarations of faith, no churches, no temples, no leaders, no hierarchy and no common moral code. In short, it has none of the hallmarks of a religion.

The faith does not grow from resentment and the rejection of rationality, but from its fundamental affirmation, and from being rooted in a still greater form of reason.

The very definition of "faith" is believing without having a need for reason. He claims that it results from a great deal of reasoning? Well, at the point that all this great deal of reasoning has occurred and things began to be taken on faith, the reason was suspended. So faith still began (and will always begin) where reason stops.

Has anybody else noticed that Catholicism is quickly becoming the more "accepting/open-minded" branch of Christianity, especially compared to "mainstream Christianity" in the US? Discuss.

Current Pope aside (who, from what I can tell, isn't even well-liked by most Catholics), the Catholic church has more or less apologized for most of its past crimes, and John Paul II even made a case for evolution. Likewise, the Church has definitely placed a huge emphasis on charitable works, and focused very little on evangelism (which, is effectively very much in line with the text of the New Testament).

Although I could be completely wrong, Catholicism seems to be one of the more progressive mainstream branches of Christianity, whereas the bible-belt Christians seem to be moving in the other direction. (This is rather significant, given the Church's history)

Personally, I'm a bit upset at these scientists for protesting a speech from the Pope, which is -- dare I say -- rather dogmatic of them. No scientist should be afraid of ideas, even if they contradict his own.

What one would expect from a religious leader? To behave like an scientist? To promote that the truth is only verifiable by scientific methodology?

What if the guy went to the University? Even the fierstest atheist may find interesting what the man has to say, being that either as a filosofical exercise or simply to get the knowledge on how the Catholic Church thinks.

Now this academic hysteria is completely ridiculous, it sounds more like a science-as-religion bigotry to me.

And, quite frankly, the academic world (I'm not talking about Science itself) is not in a good position to point any fingers.
A huge number of academics are simply and only interested in self-promotion, stealing someone else research, professors taking a hike on his/her students' work, busy formalizing bad-science in a flowered paper and... Treating anyone else outside their circle as inferiors.

You want to meet bigotry, power hunger, deceit and elitism? Politics and religion are not the only options, nor Shakespeare, one would find plenty of such crap inside the Universities.

The Pope said that torturing scientists whose research deviates from holy writ is okey-dokey. Well, he said that when they did it in the past it was okey-dokey. I'm not sure if he said, "but we shouldn't do that NOW, mind you..." but Galileo is one of the first dramatic examples of science trying to slowly freeing itself from the shackles of religion. Galileo is a sort of rubicon, where people started saying, "maybe letting religion run everything isn't really a great idea..." And when scientists protest that this apologist for torture is going to speak at their school, you invoke bigotry, the word used in reference to Nazis and the KKK?

If scientists capture the Pope and threaten to torture him to death unless he recants all religious positions that don't match modern science, then it would be bigotry. It's not "just like" something if it's different. Sorry.

The reality isn't Heliocentrism or Geocentrism, it's arbitrary-centrism. There is no objective "fact" mandating the body you choose as "the center", all the bodies are in motion in a wider context of the universe. It's just simplest (and therefore most conducive to human psychology and conceptualization) to use the system that provides the least-complex description of their respective movements.

Weird that we have scientists actively discarding science that's been clear at least since Einstein's Relativity, for the sole purpose of maintaining a stance that lets them "stick it to religion" over a largely-misrepresented (misrepresented in terms of the sharp "science versus religion" duality that's commonly touted, if you know the actual history--e.g. Galileo had permission to publish, and it only became in issue when he presented his theory in a politically-inflammatory fashion) wrong of history.

Since, I think, many will reject this post out-of-hand in that it fails their criterion of "seems to be being said by a theist", I suggest reading Robert M. Pirsig for a philosophical perspective on this very same question. Good reading there on Euclidian-versus-Riemann geometry, too.

Do we even know what the Pope's speech was going to be about? Who said it was going to have anything to do with either a) faith or b) science?

1)He could have just wanted to talk about being a good scholar.
2)He could have just wanted to assure people that he wouldn't interfere with science...people are allowed to change, he made that comment in the early 1990's, and honestly-weren't some of us wearing ponytails and huge flannel shirts around our waists back then? Also: didn't he recently give a "official pope statement" that tried to re-affirm the Roman Catholic Church's position on evolution...mainly, that it accepts it as true?
3)He could have just given a very general, non political or religious speech, like one we see at university commencements.

It seems to me that the university, particularly this one professor, is the one starting the fire. I don't think that "the pope is being intelligent by cancelling", I think the professor is attempting to be manipulative of public opinion by making that statement, and the pope probably just didn't want a rock or whistle thrown in the direction of his pope-mobile. I mean, that thing costs money.

I'm not religious, I don't go to church every week, and I believe strongly in science. I'm actually really dissapointed with the way in which this Italian professor acted. It doesn't further the goals of science or faith-which are distinct. One deals with facts (science), and the other, belief.

I think Ratzinger wasn't even making a hard point in his speech in the 1990s. He is very much a scholar- his mind wanders this way and that, considering many options. There is no hard conclusion to his speech, which is a mistake on his part-it lets other people interpret it as they wish. Like said professor. In Ratzinger's comment on the citation he made in his speech that this professor seems to take issue with, "it makes his conclusion all the more drastic" , my translation of drastic was "irrational". I don't think that Ratzinger thinks Galileo "caused the atomic bomb". I think he thinks quite the opposite.

I agree. I'm a Catholic and I think it's safe to say that the current papacy is an absolute joke. If it was just this issue, maybe we could give ol' Benedict a pass. But it seems like every month he says something ridiculous, ignorant, or backwards. It's like he just stepped out of the 17c.

Great! Where's your counter-argument? If it's so thoroughly "disproven", this should be easy...

See, the problem is that there is no one definition of God. There are plenty I can disprove out of hand as internally inconsistent, but most people do not have a clearly defined God that they believe in.

Life is itself a problem-solving system, you'd think that we'd have abandoned a tool that's become as useless as religion, using Science instead!

"Teaches us great MORALS..."... just like Lot and his daughters. Or Noah who expels one of his sons who's seen him drunk. Two of the most evident...

That's all you've got?

Just look up the Laws, in particular what it says about rape. I'll admit there are a lot of morons out there who claim to believe the entire Bible, yet obviously have not read it. [bash.org]

Or Allah uh-akbar, let's go kill them all, God's with us, Blut und Ehre, and shit. Religion includes memes of the sort that gets the warriors jumping up and down, screaming "KILL! KILL!", when resources go down and people need to die to make room in the ecological niche.

You know, the Koran goes on for pages and pages about how merciful Allah is. Jesus says "love your neighbor as yourself". At a certain point, it is hard to say whether the Jihadist or the pacifist is a perversion of their religion, but both are founded in Scripture.

There are some religious people who do horrible things because of their religion -- the Crusades, terrorism, etc. And there are some good people who do good things because of their religion -- Martin Luther King, Gandhi, etc. And there are atheists who do horrible things anyway -- Stalin, China, etc.

All of which makes it very hard to argue for or against religion based on what the religious do.

Add to the above the fact that religion is generally useful to control people and that explains why we haven't waked up yet.

You could say that's bad science, sure. And I can say that anyone using God to tell other people what to do is practicing bad religion. The only difference is that science is defined clearly enough that your claim is actually true.

So, creation of the world - check. The origin of war and the link to religion - check.

Haven't seen either of those. There's your possibly-accurate description of the origin of war, but no mention of how that's at all relevant to religion.

Now, as to why there should be dialog with religious figures?

Because as long as the scientists don't put an asshat like you up there, we should be able to show, calmly and rationally, why science deserves to be taken seriously, and why the Pope does not (if, indeed, he does not).

In case your wondering, the point is, if it makes them happy, they who are you to stop them?

To paraphrase Richard Dawkin's central argument in "The God Delusion": all religion is necessarily evil because it fosters a culture in which a faith-based life is an acceptable lifestyle, which in turn leaves a society with no means of resaonably extirpating the extremists, who are truly dangerous. In other words, if moderate faith is acceptable, it is implicit that extreme faith must also be acceptable.

With that in mind, I personally have no sympathy for the "but it makes them happy" argument. There is much more at stake here than the happiness of a bunch of hoi polloi... especially when that (delusional) happiness can be more than replaced with (rational) wonder at the mystery and beauty of the natural world.

To paraphrase Richard Dawkin's central argument in "The God Delusion": all religion is necessarily evil because it fosters a culture in which a faith-based life is an acceptable lifestyle, which in turn leaves a society with no means of resaonably extirpating the extremists, who are truly dangerous. In other words, if moderate faith is acceptable, it is implicit that extreme faith must also be acceptable.

So your saying it is perfectly acceptable to throw the baby out with the bath water? I mean this is basically making the case that one or two bad people justify persecuting everyone right?

With that in mind, I personally have no sympathy for the "but it makes them happy" argument. There is much more at stake here than the happiness of a bunch of hoi polloi... especially when that (delusional) happiness can be more than replaced with (rational) wonder at the mystery and beauty of the natural world.

I don't have much sympathy for the it makes them happy idea either, I was just tossing it out there to show the hypocrisy delivered by the haters of the believers. But tell me, you have sparked my interest, what is so bad about religious faith that you seem to be so disgruntled over. Why must you act like the religious and impose your beliefs over theirs? For what reason do you justify your actions over their similar actions?

Life is itself a problem-solving system, you'd think that we'd have abandoned a tool that's become as useless as religion, using Science instead! But the inertia of stupidity is infinite.

You have part of it.

What problem does religion (and belief in general) solve?

Bonus: Can you formulate an answer that does not make you inherently superior to religions people? See this as a challenge befitting your superior intellect. (Then once seen, unsee.)

I can't... I've just used my brain, seen that comparing religion to science rationally makes science stand out as the superior tool, and feel pity and contempt for the myriads of people who live their whole lives believing those delusions and living in accordance to them.It is an waste of effort of apocalyptic proportions and infinite stupidity; I can't see it any other way. Even if I try to imagine "all the good religions have done", I view it as an oasis in the midst of the pile of all corpses, all the witches and the dead in the religious wars... Religions are only peaceful when the people are. If they need a reason for war, they'll listen to the priest telling them to go die for God.All those conditions, environmental switches, species-specific behaviors, is a sort of social game that us primates play unconsciously and collectively.

The solution to all wars, and to religion to a large extent, is EDUCATION to teach Science to everyone, and RESOURCES so that they never get the perception that those will lack.

Do you really think millions of years of human evolution can be changed by education and resources?

And, before you turn the flames on me, I'm agnostic, so chill.

Million of years of evolution can't be changed, but, just suppress the environmental conditions that flip the behavioral switch to "war mode", and the dire consequences of religions will all be avoided : they won't be the xenophobic meme that mediates the dehumanization of the people's perception of their neighbours, if the conditions in which xenophobic memes thrive (impending lack of resources) just never happens anymore.

Bonus: Can you formulate an answer that does not make you inherently superior to religions people? See this as a challenge befitting your superior intellect. (Then once seen, unsee.)

Ok, I'll answer and go for the bonus.

You see, not everybody in the world has the blazing logical clarity that Slashdotters typically have which enables them to see that mass murder is inherently illogical. When this happens, it is the function of the religious people to assert that there is a powerful (almighty) deity who does not approve of mass murder. If the illogical would-be mass murderers pay attention to the religious people, then they refrain from commiting mass-murder.

That's the way it's supposed to work. The system isn't perfect. Sometimes religious people forget that the deity is against mass-murder and when that happens you get abberations such as crusades, jihads, the Spanish Inquisition, and so forth. Sometimes the illogical would-be mass murderers reject the religious people and then you have mass-murdering athiests such as Stalin and Pol Pot.

As I said, the system isn't perfect, but it is one layer of protection for society. Think of computer security: your system is more secure with multiple layers (anti-virus plus firewall) because each layer is itself somewhat permeable. In this case, religion serves as a kind of firewall.

he is the catholic pope. the 17 century would be an improvement. Pope John Paul at least publicly forgave Galileo though. Benndict seems to be on a mission from god to undo everything that Pope John paul did.

Galileo's falling out with the Catholic Church may have been vital - but it sure wasn't about the church accepting a proven point of heliocentricism.

Corpenicus' work proposing the heliocentric hypothesis was after all church sponsored (as was Galileo) and indeed inscribed, IIRC, to the pope of the time.

Galileo had been wrong before, apparently he believed comets to be an atmospheric phenomenon and the great _scientific_ minds of the time were as yet unconvinced. The church was leaving the question of geo- and heliocentricism open rather than making a decree as to the truth of one or other. Galileo by all accounts didn't like that. Despite being called in to the vatican he went ahead and published non-latin work to tell the masses that his theory was the truth - this shows he wasn't trying to convince the learned scholars, incidentally. Kepler had already published on much of the stuff Galileo worked on anyway so the papacy was hardly keeping things in the bag. Possibly the church was wary of following Kepler's hypotheses which appear to have been founded on a sort of Platonic helio-mysticism (eg http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/kepler.html [rice.edu]).

Fine, the papacy over-reacted to Galileo. We got it.

Incidentally - was Galileo right? Is the sun "fixed". I don't think so. Indeed I'm happy with both geocentric and heliocentric descriptions; but in a "sol" centred frame of reference I'm happier with heliocentric maths (though one of the problems with heliocentricism apparently was that it failed to be as accurate as Ptolemy's tables).

Let's shift the goal posts back then. You want to know how religion in itself contributes to bloodshed and torture? Very simple, by keeping people stupid.

I smell the question-begging fallacy...

How do they achieve this? By indoctrinating people. Look at Christianity, you are considered to be 'religious' if you go to some building to listen to some dude talk about his interpretation of some ancient moral codex which was designed for the retards of 2000 years ago. Christianity is all about dogma and other pointless BS that has no relation to the modern world.

Bingo! Mix in a little bit of straw man and red herring, and voila! In fact, Christianity does not recognize people as religious, generally speaking, and certainly not just for going into a building to listen to people talk. And as to someone's interpretation, shrug, Protestantism in particular encourages everyone coming up with their own interpretation. And Christianity, in fact, is not about dogma, but the absence of it. And whether it related to the modern world is a mere opinion, and, I submit, an uninformed one.

And finally, you have not established that you are any less retarded than the people 2000 years ago.

You've said nothing interesting so far, and glancing quickly ahead, I see nothing else interesting. I am not going to take time responding to each of your points, because it is clearly a waste of our collective time. However, I will respond to one more thing, because I think it shows quite clearly how irrational you're being.

Do you realize how fucked up it is to reduce religion to a bunch of statements: "God hates fags, taxes and baby-killers. God loves America!"

Yes, it is fucked up to reduce religion to such statements. So why are you doing it? Very few Christians -- and none that i know personally -- believe God hates any of those things. Some do, and the views of those people are categorically rejected by the overwhelming majority of Christians. And yes, God loves America in the mind of most Christians, the same way God loves everyone and everything, except sin. God also loves China and Russia and Cuba.

Your whole post is full of ignorant claims, but this one shows quite clearly that you are not even attacking Christianity at all. You probably wouldn't know Christianity if it fell in your lap.

Sorry, not ignorant, I know religion all too well and have seen what it does to people.

No, you have not. You have seen what it does to SOME people. If you actually knew religion well, you would know that its positive effects far outweigh its negative ones.

As discussed at length in the book 'Breaking the Spell', you made a statement, now come up with the evidence. Prove it. If you think religion has such a great history of positive effects show it: statistically not anecdotally.

The sad thing is that anyone thinks this needs to be proven. What are they teaching in schools these days?

Start with science. Science as we know it today was brought into existence by religious people who -- unlike their atheist contemporaries -- believed that, because God exists, the universe must have order, and rules, and that those rules are discoverable. It is because of Isaac Newton's religious beliefs that he brought so much knowledge to our world.

Justice. It is from religion that we get the idea that all men are created equal, that equality before the law, equality of rights, equality of worth are good and right and true.

I could go on but dinner is approaching. Now, to turn things around, all the things mentioned to me -- the crusades and so on -- don't appear to me to be related to religion at all. Religion was no more inherent to the Crusades than Nationalism was to the Holocaust. Those were both just tools used to promote other fascistic ideas about conquering and destruction. You could make the case that unthinking religion or nationalism is bad, but that's nothing new, and not unique to any particular idea. For example, courage is not bad, but courage without wisdom is bad, and so on. There's nothing bad inherent in religion.

Now, maybe there's bad things inherent in a particular religion, such as Scientology. But that's a separate discussion.

Maybe it's just the media, but when was the last time you heard about Christians actually helping people?

Every day. Just today I heard from a good friend of mine who is helping to set up computer networking for people in Papua New Guinea. Yesterday, another friend helping a couple whose child is very sick. That same friend, by the way, also was down in New Orleans last year, helping Katrina victims. It happens all the time, but they just don't tend to make a big deal out of it.

Not that this is unique to Christians, of course: most people are like that. Well, most people I know, anyway.:-)

None of the outspoken Christians even seem to follow the moral teachings of Jesus or their holy book.

You won't find a much bigger critic of some Christians than me. I have many times criticized, for example, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and many televangelists. That is, of course, not a reflection on either religion, or other religious people (except the people who follow them).

Basically, what I'm getting at, is that for my entire life, living in what is one of the most Christian places in Canada, I have never seen this 'good' side of Christianity; "If you actually knew religion well." you say. I know it well enough.

I don't think you do, though I could be wrong... but I doubt it. You are talking about viewing Christians at a very shallow level: looking at the news, seeing some of them occasionally in public. That is not a very strong form of knowledge.

I've seen classmates at school berate and threaten other kids because they believe in evolution, or had a homosexual relationship.

Sure. And I've seen classmates at school berate and threaten other kids because they were religious. This has nothing to do with religion, it has to do with people hating differences. It's not a good thing, certainly, but it is not a "feature" of religion.

In my eyes, Christianity only gives people a reason to bully other people, no more.

That only proves you really, in fact, do not know Christianity well at all.

Exactly. Too many relgious types seem to confuse criticism with persecution. It's laughable for any Christian to think they are being persecuted in a Western country, and particularly American Christians... for Christ's sake [pun intended] your friggin' President is a Christian.

1. The establishment clause only applies in the USA.2. The establishment clause only prohibits the government from opposing religion. As long as their actions are otherwise legal, people can criticize the Church all they want.3. If someone says grass is blue, it is within societal norms to laugh at them. But mysteriously it's not okay to do so if they say the world is 6000 years old.

Saying "Black people are inferior" is bigoted. Saying "Statistically, black people in the USA are more likely to commit robbery" isn't, since it's a statement of fact.

Saying that the Bible is two-thousand year old fiction produced by goat herders is a statement of fact. It is verifiably not true.

"Irrationality" is any thought that defies the predetermined narrative (as defined by the mainstream). In the 17th-century, it was any man of science. Today, it's any man of faith. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

these scientists were protesting the Pope giving a speech without knowing what he was even going to say

They weren't protesting about what he was going to say. They were protesting about what he said in the past. Unless the pope was going to say "sorry, I was wrong", the scientists were absolutely right.

Generally I find when talking with religious types that they do hold rational beliefs, lots of them. It's just that they don't all fit together into a coherent picture of the world; something which usually goes unnoticed.

I don't think anyone fits all their beliefs together into a coherent picture of the world.

Sure, but there are degrees of coherence here. Just because no one has a completely consistent and coherent set of beliefs does not mean all sets of personal beliefs are equally coherent. For example, someone who believes in a virgin birth and a resurrection, but who is also a engineer or scientist trained to look at evidence, probably has a lot more cognitive dissonance and partitioning going on in their brain than the typical person. Similarly, a scientist who at least attempts to adopt only beliefs which can be supported directly with physical evidence may not totally succeed because non-evidence-based beliefs are often required in daily life to simply function. Nevertheless, they probably have a reasonably consistent world view with a lot less superlative fluff to fill in their knowledge gaps.

That's probably because "beliefs" don't take up much time in the day of a rational, sane scientist. Either you know something (and can "prove" it) or you don't. Everything in between is called the scientific method (and that includes mathematical reasoning from principles, such as Einsteins relativity theorems).

Making up (or "believing", or getting handed down from ancient texts) some absurd, senseless claims about the world being under effect from an unseen being who "created" a universe larger than human conception to play a sick version of SimCity with us to justify a predefined ending in which billions of people get sadistic torture in hell "for ever" because they "believe" otherwise, is just stupid. It's not just about coherence - it's way beyond that. It's comical. The whole idea of "belief" itself defies reason. And when it involves gods with the minds of six-year-olds, it really does not make sense for educated, mature people to listen to anyone trying to speak with these "beliefs" as a platform. We have better things to do, frankly. Like playing beach volleyball, and reading slashdot, and doing science. Anything that doesn't involve drama and bizarre scenarios with unseen beings and fucked up philosophy.

Plus, most deep thinkers, esp. physicists, do have a coherent view of the world, or at least SEEK, through science, a coherent view. Science aims to remove mystery. Religion thrives on mystery. The two don't mix.

the pontiff looks at questions that have no place in reality or in rational discussion.

I'm sorry, but questions like "where did we come from," "why are we here," and "what is my moral duty to others" are important questions that have been part of rational discussion for literally thousands of years. Most of the great Western philosophers--people who perhaps define "rational"--have spent time thinking about those questions. For example Plato [wikipedia.org], Descartes [wikipedia.org] ("I think, therefore I am" [wikipedia.org]), Epictetus [wikipedia.org], Nietzsche [wikipedia.org], just to name a few. Each of those philosophers has thought about why we are here and what duty we owe to others--questions that the Pope also seeks to answer. He uses a different method to reach his answers, but the question is shared between secular and religious philosophers.

You might agree with the Pope's answers, but the questions are certainly important and deserve rational treatment.

Some questions are simply wrong. Asking "why" presupposes a reason and in a lot of cases there isn't one (on the level people are looking for - people still don't seem to accept the possibility that humanity's whole existence did not serve a higher purpose).

Personally, I'm viewing philosophers as the stepping stone between religion and science. You see, at the dawn of human civilization humans started asking questions: the first (incredibly bad) way of answering them was religion. Some people were not satisfied with the way religion answers them, so they went into the direction of philosophy. Some people went into the direction of science to try to answer questions. Religion and philosophy are flawed ways of finding things out.

The issue is not rejection: It's supression.
Just as The Church was guilty of censorship when it was in power, now we having these scientists refusing to listen to another side of the issue.

Risking coming across as a flame, the point here is that their notion of suppression was "agree with us or we'll suppress your life", a position Pope Benedict has (reportedly) implicitly defended, and which is the cause of the "we really don't you preaching your religion in our campus" reaction (which, let's face it, is a fair bit milder take on the whole suppression thing).

This is Ratzinger we're talking about here. He's not even a figure of universal acceptance in love *within* the Church, let alone outside it. He's considered a stiff, uncompromising, ultra-conservative with all the delusions of his predecessor but none of the charm.

Banning the Pope today from speaking at a University because of what was done to Galileo 400 years ago is the thinest of all possible excuses for blatant anti-religious prejudice.

No, it's a statement by Galileo's intellectual heirs that the Church committed a crime, and that the current Pope is one of those group of modern Catholic apologists who are trying to make the Church look good.

It is just mean spirited narrow-minded and wrong.

There are religious people who, as we speak, are cutting off peoples heads for being of the "wrong" faith, and putting women in prison for being the victims of rape. And yet their representatives get to speak at Universities.

This situation is just preposterous.

Indeed, I don't think a guy who claims to get his instructions from God has any business showing up at a university.